Summer Challenge 2025: Books Recommended by CBC

If you're looking for help completing your Summer Challenge Bingo Card, here is a booklist with titles recommended by CBC.

Want even more CBC recommendations? Check out the CBC website!

Updated June 13, 2025
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A two-spirit journey : the autobiography of a lesbian Ojibwa-Cree elder
Chacaby, Ma-Nee
Paper Book
Winner of Canada Reads 2025 From her early, often harrowing memories of life and abuse in a remote Ojibwa community, Ma-Nee Chacaby's extraordinary story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social and economic legacies of colonialism. As a child, Chacaby learned...
The future
Leroux, Catherine
Paper Book
Winner of Canada Reads 2024 * Longlisted for the 2025 Dublin Literary Award * Longlisted for the 2024 Carol Shields Prize for Fiction * One of Tor.com's Can't Miss Speculative Fiction for Fall 2023 * Listed in CBC Books Fiction to Read in Fall 2023 * One of Kirkus...
Ducks : two years in the oil sands
Beaton, Kate
Paper Book
A New York Times Notable book! One of Barack Obama's favorite books of 2022! Winner of Canada Reads 2023! "An exceptionally beautiful book about loneliness, labor, and survival."--Carmen Maria Machado Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times...
Something, not nothing : a story of grief and love
Leavitt, Sarah
Paper Book
In April 2020, cartoonist Sarah Leavitt's partner of twenty-two years, Donimo, died with medical assistance after years of severe chronic pain and a rapid decline at the end of her life. About a month after Donimo's death, Sarah began making comics again as a way to deal with her profound sense of...
The life cycle of the common octopus : a novel
Knight, Emma
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER | READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY "Undeniably delicious." --The New York Times "A spellbinding debut about friendship, motherhood, first love, and the choices that bind us. . . I couldn't put...
Crash landing
Li, Charmaine Anne
Paper Book
Governor General Literary Awards Winner * A NYPL Best Book of 2024 This YA debut is a searing ode to queer identity, growing up in an immigrant community, and carving a place for yourself in the world with the help of your friends. Jay Wong is spending the last languid days of...
The new girl
Calin, Cassandra
Paper Book
This funny, feel-good middle-grade graphic novel about change and acceptance will be a hit with fans of Guts by Raina Telgemeier, Pizza Face by Rex Ogle and Dave Valeza, and Parachute Kids by Betty C. Tang. Goodbye, old life... Lia and her family are...
Fledgling. The keeper's records of revolution
Ali, S. K.
Paper Book
The first book in a gripping duology from acclaimed author S.K. Ali introduces a fractured world on the brink of either enlightenment or war. Would you trade love for peace? Raisa of Upper Earth has only lived a life of privilege and acquiescence. Ever dutiful...
Blackheart Man : a novel
Hopkinson, Nalo
Paper Book
The magical island of Chynchin is facing conquerors from abroad and something sinister from within in this entrancing fantasy from the Grand Master Award-winning author Nalo Hopkinson. Veycosi, in training as a griot (an historian and musician), hopes to sail off to examine the...
What I know about you
Chacour, Éric
Paper Book
LONGLISTED FOR CANADA READS 2025 CBC BOOKS CANADIAN FICTION BOOKS TO READ IN FALL 2024  SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE FINALIST FOR THE 2024 DAYNE OGILVIE PRIZE FOR LGBTQ2S+ EMERGING WRITERS FINALIST FOR THE ATWOOD GIBSON...
Held
Michaels, Anne
Paper Book
WINNER OF THE GILLER PRIZE * SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE * A NEW YORK TIMES BEST HISTORICAL NOVEL OF THE YEAR * A breathtaking and ineffable new novel from the author of the international bestsellers Fugitive Pieces and The Winter Vault--a novel of love and loyalty...

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